The Alchemy Wars - Ian Tregillis (Spoilers for the Trilogy)

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

HEM,

 

I disagree. The use of the term "quintessiance", in my opinon, implies something unique and essential.  Given enough Mechanicals the French defenses could be overcome without dealing with their chemical knowhow.  Therefore, I doubt the "quintessiance" is something to use against the French specifically.  I think it is something even more essential

[jurble]

I hadn't realized book 2 was out until I saw this thread today.   Already finished.  I NEED MORE and he needs to write longer books.

[unJon]

Really enjoyed this book a lot. Looking forward to the conclusion. I didn't see a sample chapter in my kindle version but am going to look again now.

Re: quintessence I think

the word literally translates as "fifth essence" and back in the days of ancient alchemical beliefs would be the fifth element like spirit or soul, etc., and became aether. Aether then got imported into classic physics as the substance space is made of and light travels through until the Morley and Michelson theory disproved its existence, leading to the theory of relativity.

Given that, I'm guessing it's some exotic material that imparts the spark of life into the mechanicals. I agree the mine is located in an ancient meteor impact site, but that may not be the sole source of the element.

[Bjornbert]

Maybe quintessence is that glass they make to control the Clakkers? Also, I think Daniel actually heard Mab talking about it before she actually got the news from Berenice so it would be consistent given her tool to impose the metageasa(and the other clakkers in her camp wouldn't know about it)

[Sheep the Evicted]

So whatever this quintessence is it seems to overwrite physics? biology ? I mean how is Visser still alive much less moving when he took a pickaxe through the spine ? In the third books I imagine all the humans will try and get some, because while they will still be vastly inferior to the free mechanicals it might just give them a fighting chance. Speaking of which, was anyone else struggling to suspend their disbelief when the humans had to go up against the mechanicals - here is a creature that can throw a stone fast enough to break the sound barrier and move fast enough that its passage superheats the ground - but somehow they can be tracked and killed by these slow, squishy humans ? It would be like fighting a sentient bullet, by all rights the second any mechanical claimed the walls the war should have been over. But it was cool. And Rule of Cool supersedes all.

Also how comes Mechanicals have different personalities ? As with all speculative works its hard to know what we should be questioning and what we should just accept as the conceit but as Tregillis spent so much time on free will he should have considered it, so i think its fair. Anyway, so the only reason us humans have different personalities is presumably due to the differences in our brains - thanks to the quirks of biology - that makes us process the world around us in different ways as well as all the different situations we experience throughout our lives.However all Mechanicals have the same hardware and they are all spend their formative years as slaves, so why the difference in personality between Jax, Dwyrre, Lillith and Mab ? Does quintessence give you a different personality as well ?

Finally, i can't decide if Trelligis was trolling when Berenice mentioned England having something important. On one hand I kind of appreciate that in this time-line England remained part of a rainy island in the middle of nowhere; its different. On the other hand i find it really hard to accept the fact that the greatest Alchemist of his day, working for the pre-eminent country of the day, would just sit on his hands and watch as another country created Alchemical robots to take over the world. Especially when clippings from the first chapter seem to indicate that Hyuugens only  succeeded after peeking at Newton's notes. But we ended up not going to England after all and instead I end up feeling slightly trolled.

edit - sorry it took so long to post. Feels like i'm arguing with thin air. Wrote most of this out and forgot about it.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

StE,

Anyway, so the only reason us humans have different personalities is presumably due to the differences in our brains - thanks to the quirks of biology - that makes us process the world around us in different ways as well as all the different situations we experience throughout our lives.

That's very deteministic/materialist view of human consciousness.  Is it your position nurture and individual choice plays no role in cognative development?  That free will does not exist?

[Sheep the Evicted]

I do believe nurture plays a massive role in forming our personalities its what i meant when i said "as well as the different situations we experience". And like I mentioned for Mechanicals that experience will largely be similar - namely being slaves.

As for my opinion on free will ? In the real world i believe it exist's - with alot of effort we can go against our programming - but the whole point of Trelligis' setting is that on their earth it doesn't. Or at least that is the way it appears so far. In that case Mechanicals shouldn't have different personalities. Again, it's possible Trelligis didn't consider this, its more likely he did and discarded it because he decided it would be awful from a storytelling perspective.

[HexMachina]

You mentioned that all mechanicals have the same hardware. I don't think that is true, I think there is some kind of individual identifier (possibly the symbols around the keyhole?) that give each Mechanical its ow personality. And I think free will does exist in Tregillis' Earth. The novels are focusing on the overriding/suppression of free will, what happens when free will is achieved, etc. The way Jax interacted with other mechanicals in the first novel (pre-freedom) when he spoke to them in private, and even when he stopped for the execution, suggests that free will exists in the mechanicals, but the Dutch have found a way to suppress it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

StE,

The very fact that free will needs to be superceded by mechanical means implies that free will does exist.  Otherwise, why would it need to be constrained and restricted in mechanicals and in humans?

[Bjornbert]

I do believe nurture plays a massive role in forming our personalities its what i meant when i said "as well as the different situations we experience". And like I mentioned for Mechanicals that experience will largely be similar - namely being slaves.

As for my opinion on free will ? In the real world i believe it exist's - with alot of effort we can go against our programming - but the whole point of Trelligis' setting is that on their earth it doesn't. Or at least that is the way it appears so far. In that case Mechanicals shouldn't have different personalities. Again, it's possible Trelligis didn't consider this, its more likely he did and discarded it because he decided it would be awful from a storytelling perspective.

Umm, you are confusing the truth of the setting with the Dutch's opinion. The Dutch are calvinist from what I gather so obviously they wouldn't believe in Free Will. Obviously they will try to prove by removing it from a person, but I never understood how removing it disproves its existance

[Xray the Enforcer]

So whatever this quintessence is it seems to overwrite physics? biology ? I mean how is Visser still alive much less moving when he took a pickaxe through the spine ? In the third books I imagine all the humans will try and get some, because while they will still be vastly inferior to the free mechanicals it might just give them a fighting chance. Speaking of which, was anyone else struggling to suspend their disbelief when the humans had to go up against the mechanicals - here is a creature that can throw a stone fast enough to break the sound barrier and move fast enough that its passage superheats the ground - but somehow they can be tracked and killed by these slow, squishy humans ? It would be like fighting a sentient bullet, by all rights the second any mechanical claimed the walls the war should have been over.

 

I agree with your first point. The narrative nerfs the Klakkers at very convenient times in the book to let the humans win (or at least survive). It was one of the things that has bugged me the very most about the books thus far. In that regard, Tregillis's first series (Milkweed Triptych) was much better handled. (won't post what this is here as it's a pretty nifty spoiler element in that series).

I disagree with you on the deterministic nature of the mechanicals' personalities. 1) it's impossible to perfectly recreate something (think how identical twins can vary significantly in personality); even microscopic variances in the mechanisms could account for different personalities, and 2) I think Helena has a good point with different alchemical symbols combining in each Klakker to produce a unique entity. As such, that part of the book didn't bother me and at least seems plausible.

[Lord Patrek]

I totally got into the Milkweek books and pimped them with rave reviews, but I was SO underwhelmed by the first volume of this new series. I felt that it was such a drop in quality that it felt as though it had been written by someone else. And being from Montréal, his depiction of Québec didn't ring true at all. . .

Feels kind of odd to see that so many people appear to really love this second series. To each his/her own, I guess!

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Patrek,

I haven't read anything else by Tregellis but I, for one, have enjoyed the philosophical tone of this series.

[Lord Patrek]

Then check out his first trilogy! Just awesome!

[RedEyedGhost]

I finished it today and I thought it was phenomenal.  One great metric for determining how much I enjoyed a book is how quickly I am ready to start the next one, and while I had been chomping at the bit to start Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen I still don't have any desire to actually begin.

The new quote system is not very friendly for dropping in things to talk about line by line, so I'll be more broad.  I agree with everything Helena said about The Mechanical in the OP.  I think Visser's POV chapters were my favorite in that book, so it was disappointing that he wasn't a lead in this book - but with the reveal at the end it was probably better that we didn't have to see all of his activities (and the anguish they caused).  I haven't read the preview chapter, but I did peek at it and I cannot wait to get into Bell's head (I had zero doubt that she survived, Bernice really should have ended her).

Throughout the vast majority of the book I was dreading reading Longchamp's chapters because they were so unpleasant, by the end I was really looking forward to them because they were so atmospheric.  I do agree that it could be hard to suspend disbelief on some of the fight scenes, but in no way to that dampen my enjoyment of reading them.  I don't mind Longchamp not giving Visser a second thought simply because his entire focus was on the defense and Visser could not help with that and he was so exhausted that his mind literally couldn't wander.  I was also okay with his underwhelming death because I'm sure that's what the character himself would have wanted.  I really loved Elodie's progression throughout his chapters.

Bernice was great as expected.  There was some talk above about New France being the good guys and the Dutch being the Baddies, or was New France just a different kind of baddie because of Bernice's goal of getting the clakkers to "work" for New France rather than simply freeing them from the Dutch.  At first I was thinking it really was the latter, but the more I think about the more I think it's the former.  Unfortunately we don't really have that much evidence to support either, but I think two things are compelling: first Lilith - they let her hang around Marseille-in-the-West for decades and it was only Bernice who tortured her, and second Visser's thoughts about the clakkers in The Mechanical - he obviously felt they had souls and deserved their freedom, and in his head it seemed that he thought his opinions were that of all Catholics.  So, imo, Bernice's situation is very similar (but much less extreme, and slightly more voluntary) than Visser's post-transformation.  Her metageas is to ensure the survival of New France at any cost.

And Daniel.  Daniel was the star of the show for me in this one.  Just an amazing character, and the growth throughout the book was perfect.  The highlights were his naivety when arriving at Neverland, his picking up of Bernice's habits, his growth to work toward saving his people if it meant sacrificing a life to do it, and his suspicious nature as he met Bernice again.  I was surprised about how bothered he was about having another clakker's part inserted, but this is pre-transplant technology so I'm sure humans would feel quite the same at that time.

About the quintessence, it's obvious it's material from a meteor that they're mining.  Likely it's used in the creation of the pineal glass that they all have in their skulls, and I think that is what gives them a "soul" and yes, it likely means there's a limited number of possible clakkers.  The main question I have about it is, is this the first source?  Or did they have another source in Europe that is running dry or completely depleted, and that's why they were so willing to handsomely reward Montmorecy for his maps?  The lack of infrastructure around the crater definitely makes me think this is a new source, and the reason they built the new forge was to mitigate the risk of transporting it so far.  It also might have slightly different properties as the new world clakkers are different then the old world, but that could also be put down to newer technologies.  Or maybe it is the one and only source, and the lack of infrastructure is to keep it so secret - there was a Dutch expedition in that area looking for the Northwest Passage in 1619.  Great post on the "fifth essence" unJon!

I really liked that Mab wasn't any better than Bernice or Bell.

I loved that first moment when a chapter had a second POV, because shit got real and things really ramped up for that last 20% of the book.  Tregillis might write the best second parts of a trilogy ever, no "middle book" syndrome from him!

And lastly there's been a lot of discussion about whether or not free will is real in this world.  Most of it from Scot, and I can't tell if he's for or against the argument.  It seems pretty obvious to me that free will is real, it can just be "destroyed" by compelling beings to act against their normal character.  The pain Visser is in when ever he tries to tell anybody anything about his circumstances is all the evidence needed.

Great book!  I think I covered everything I wanted to (but I'm sure I'll think of something else as soon as I hit submit reply).

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

REG,

I think free will exists here too.  The fact that the Clackkers want to resist metageas and geas strongly suggests free will exists.  It is simply interesting to me that the Dutch seem to take the opinion that if free will existed it could not be overcome.

[RedEyedGhost]

13 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

REG,

I think free will exists here too.  The fact that the Clackkers want to resist metageas and geas strongly suggests free will exists.  It is simply interesting to me that the Dutch seem to take the opinion that if free will existed it could not be overcome.

I'm sure they feel that way because it fits their narrative and as the rulers of the world they certainly don't want to upset the status quo.  And there's a foundation for it in their religion.  I also have no doubt that Bell doesn't give two shits about any of that, and that she knows exactly what she's doing to the clakkers and then to Visser.

Oh, and I agree with Pat, you should definitely read The Milkweed Triptych too.  Although his not liking this series is borderline insane.

[Sheep the Evicted]

Thinking about it some more you guys are absolutely right; ofcourse the mechanicals have free will its just suppressed. But we started by talking about personality and I don't really see how free will changes that. Every unique character trait would have to be premeditated and trained and that really doesn't seem to be the case. It seems like alchemist's just give their clakkers a soul that also comes with a unique personality.

Also some souls are clearly better than others; Mab has largely the same hardware as other clakkers (even if it is in a crazy jumble) but she moves faster and hits harder than everyone else. Maybe this is what they are planning to go to England to get - the formula for a clakker that moves at mach 3 instead of mach 2.

[Andorion]

I absolutely loved this book. It was fast and action packed.

 

The first book mainly talked about the agony of Clakkers without Free Will and the disorientation of a Clakker who does manage to get it. This books was about the pitfalls of Clakker Free Will - especially Mab and that she could decide to enslave other Clakkers of her own Free Will. Now that the spread of freedom has started, I think the third book will interweave narratives about human reactions - barely surviving to attempted retaliation, and Clakker debates about future action with people like Mab advocating enslavement or extermination of humans. 

 

The Clakkers soul and personality clearly come from alchemy itself. Given the advanced nature of alchemical technology could this be a derivation from human neural chemistry?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Andorion,

Given the "Quintessiance" there does seem, to me, to be a mystical dualistic element to Clakker consciousness.